A narrow perspective on the scans_daily brouhaha

The recent suspension of the LiveJournal group scans_daily (a community where folks would post selected pages from older and current comic books along with commentary, and other folks would discuss) is all over the comic blog world today, so I figured I'd weigh in with my thoughts as well--hey, maybe get in on a conversation while it's still ongoing for once!

There are two sides, as there often are. One says that the group is guilty of copyright infringement, that the postings there go beyond the limits of fair use, and that its existence costs the comic companies money because people go there to read the high points of comics instead of buying them. The other says that the group exposed folks to comics they might not otherwise have checked out, and that folks then go and buy the comics they've seen excerpted there.

I was never a regular at scans_daily, although I did come across it fairly often; I don't know whether what was posted there exceeded fair use (I am not a lawyer, and of course I haven't read everything there) to the point of illegality, so I won't address the legal issue at all. Obviously if it's illegal to do, any benefit the comic companies may or may not have gained is beside the point.

But I'm curious about folks' reading habits and how they're influenced. I know that my own comic reading has expanded because of having read excerpted pages online (sometimes at scans_daily, more often at other sites including official preview pages). I know that I've purchased trade paperbacks after having read bits of old comics online. (Batman: Red Hood, Batman: Death in the Family, the old Outsiders TPBs, several Green Lantern trades, the Justice League International Trades, Villains United which led to a love of the Secret Six which led to a tendency to at least try anything Gail Simone writes, etc.). I know that I've not only added books to my list but also picked up books I'd already dropped after seeing pages online. (And I'll tell you that the latter makes me damn grumpy--"Awww, damn it, why did I stop getting that, it's gotten good!) And I know there are characters (Arsenal/Red Arrow, for one) I've grown interested in solely because I've seen their stories excerpted online.

I am not saying that my experience is typical, because I don't know--maybe there are more people who don't buy books because of online excerpts than there are those of us who end up buying more (okay, sometimes a lot more...). (And I know I'm someone who really doesn't like reading online--I much prefer to hold something in my hands when I'm reading--so perhaps my preference for paper has some effect here.)

And I'm not saying that it's wrong that LiveJournal took the site down, because I don't know the law behind that decision.

I'm just offering an individual data point, and saying that scans_daily and similar sites are responsible for my having spent a fair bit more money on comics than I would have otherwise.